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Byron York

Message from Alaska: Our disaster relief isn’t “pork”

“Even though referred to as a ‘Sandy’ bill, we look at the vehicle as a ‘disaster’ bill,” Knudson wrote. “The Alaska fish disaster (declared in September by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce) is impacting Alaskans similarly to storm-impacted residents of NY/NJ/CT, and the longer we wait, the more desperate those Americans become.”

It’s unlikely that many Americans in the Lower 48 know about it, but the Alaskan salmon industry — a significant part of the state’s economy — has been struck by a slow-moving disaster for several years now. Sources of salmon that even in the mid-2000s yielded hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish are now yielding next to nothing. Nobody quite agrees on what is causing the problem, but as Knudson noted, in September the Commerce Department issued what is called a resource disaster designation covering parts of the Alaskan salmon industry, making it eligible for federal relief funds…

“You tell me how likely, or how quickly, Congress will act on a stand-alone fish disaster bill,” says Knudson. “And now that all of my conservative friends have called out the fish disaster appropriation as ‘pork,’ the prognosis has gotten much worse.”

Blowback

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The federal government ought to tell the states to self insure for disasters, instead of spending all their money, put some in a disaster relief fund. These natural disasters happen at a certain rate, they can self insure.

And, why should we be bailing out any industry? Seems to me that if you want to cover yourself against the vagaries of life, there’s this thing called “insurance” that you might want to look into, rather than looting my pockets to cover your loss. Sorry, but it is pork.

Well I would rather fund, if I had to do anything, for the salmon than those krappy wind farms, hollywood, or other things in the ‘cliff bill’! Too bad dc won’t/doesn’t stop passing ‘must pass’ bills with every little thing someone wants stuck in them? I guess I know why, they get three minutes to look over a 2000 page bill before they pass it! But they will NEVER stop that!
L

Fish populations in Alaska are hardly a national emergency in need of federal money. (Well, then again, neither is a storm in NJ/NY/CT).

And that reminds me… Why are we bailing out the richest parts of some of the richest states because millionaires and billionaires decided to build their McMansions into the side of sand dunes in areas with histories of heavy flooding?

Isn’t AK the state sends its residents a check every year? Why not use some of that money to cover this “disaster”? And what is the money going for? Will it be used to farm salmon that can be released into the wild and then caught by the fishermen? Or just pay the fishermen not to fish?

This is wrong on so many levels. Alaska politicians are the most greedy, corrupt, and venal people this side of Chicago.

Timin203
The areas struck by Sandy are about as upper class as KFC is haute cuisine. Breezy, Belle Harbor, Long Beach, Massapequa, Midland Beach, New Dorp, Long Branch, Belmar et al are homes to the middle class. The folks who own the landscape outfit, the pizza joint, teach kindergarten or HS science, carry a shield and ride in an RMP, retired from working construction or selling Fords. They more than likely voted Romney. And yet they are excoriated as elites mooching at the ordinary guy’s taxes. Portrayed as ne’er do wells looking for a handout. Used as examples of dependence on the gummint. I’m just a little sick of all this rugged individualism on sites like HA. Read a little history of the nation and see that govt intervention is older than the Constitution. Look at Hamilton’s war bond deal, Jackson’s pet banks, the Homestead Act. This is a nation of states, but it is a nation and insuring that people who paid their flood insurance premiums actually get their paynents will hardly bring down the Republic.

Sounds like it’s effectively a federal insurance payout for low fish yields. Doesn’t the Department of Agriculture already have a program like that? They do for crops and whatnot (even though they shouldn’t).

My family owned a house on the jersey shore for years, I grew up going there every summer. I live in CT, and know many people whose houses were destroyed. After Irene, I helped rebuild houses.

The vast majority of the homes destroyed, while not owned by “millionaires and billionaires” (I was just throwing in Obama lingo) are owned by “the rich” according to Obamas standards.

The landscapers with the shack a few blocks off the boardwalk in Belmar probably didn’t get house floated away. But even if they did, it hardly changes the fact that these houses cost 2 to 3 times more then most American’s houses, these people get subsidized flood “insurance” that the rest of the country pays for, and those of us who live inland in cheaper houses have to subsidize those of us who live in multi million dollar mansions on the beach.

And again, even the cheapest houses in Belmar or on long island are still much more expensive then houses farther inland — Most of people could never afford to live in any of these communities, yet they have to pay the cost of
1) rebuilding them
2) reimbursing state and local governments for doing the jobs they were hired to do by said state and local governments.

Hardly seems fair, does it? If we allowed true market forces to work, insurance in a flood zone would be incredibly expense / impossible to get, and people would either build farther away from the ocean, or chose to not buy a house that could be swept away by a flood at any time (unless they were very wealthy and could absorb the cost). But no, we subsidize the poor choice of buying a house in a flood zone by guaranteeing the repair the house for free.

insuring that people who paid their flood insurance premiums actually get their paynents will hardly bring down the Republic.

xkaydet65 on January 5, 2013 at 3:30 PM

Hmmm, seems that isn’t what this bill is about. If the flood program (which is another thing that shouldn’t be government-run!) is low on funding, then I could see a bill to bring it up to level, then to raise premiums to cover future costs. But, this bill is about giving lots of people money for which they didn’t pay insurance premiums and for which they are counting on nothing more than the feelings of do-goodery which the politicians receive for passing this pile of pork. Oh, yeah – and votes.

If we allowed true market forces to work, insurance in a flood zone would be incredibly expense / impossible to get, and people would either build farther away from the ocean, or chose to not buy a house that could be swept away by a flood at any time (unless they were very wealthy and could absorb the cost).

Timin203 on January 5, 2013 at 3:45 PM

The flip side is that everywhere that you might get a couple of inches of water if there were a half-mile-high tsunami sweep in wouldn’t be classified as “flood zones”. The government has a vested interest in designating anything within half a mile of water as a “flood zone”. (My house sits smack in the middle of a flood zone – but is on one of the few plots of land not so designated; not having to cough up for the insurance was a major selling point.)

It’s unlikely that many Americans in the Lower 48 know about it, but the Alaskan salmon industry — a significant part of the state’s economy — has been struck by a slow-moving disaster for several years now. Sources of salmon that even in the mid-2000s yielded hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish are now yielding next to nothing.

Not so slow-moving a disaster, I suppose, that it couldn’t yet be called man-made depletion or the industry adapt to the problem. Here’s a bar graph of Alaska Commercial Salmon Catches in millions of fish, all species (scroll down, blue lines) from 1878 to 2012.

Also note that while catch quantity has fluctuated and volatility increased these last ten years, value of catch has shot up almost 300% since 2002.

They want $150M for an industry that generates $500M to $600M in revenue and up from $200M from 2002?

I’m thinking I need more of an explanation than “it’s a slow-moving disaster”.

The flip side is that everywhere that you might get a couple of inches of water if there were a half-mile-high tsunami sweep in wouldn’t be classified as “flood zones”. The government has a vested interest in designating anything within half a mile of water as a “flood zone”. (My house sits smack in the middle of a flood zone – but is on one of the few plots of land not so designated; not having to cough up for the insurance was a major selling point.)

GWB on January 5, 2013 at 3:55 PM

Fine, and thats a decision you or whichever insurance company has the best rates / most reasonable approach can decide. Why is the government in the game of deciding what is a flood zone and what isnt?

My point is, when you get government involved in every facet of peoples lives, they begin to look to government any time anything goes wrong. It’s the height of ridiculousness when someone living in a gorgeous million dollar home on the beach comes to government (well, really taxpayers / “me”) with hand out when their home gets reclaimed by the ocean.

Hey bud, I’m not the one who forced you to move 10 feet away from the high tide line.

On the flip side, if you are willing to take the risk for whatever reason, thats also fine. Enjoy your house, I hope nothing bad happens, but if it does… well, I’ll feel bad about it, but I shouldn’t have to subsidize your decisions.